Other People Stop Looking
by Menthol Pixie
Summary: "People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking."
1. Prologue

** Other People Stop Looking**

** A/N: I have been wanting to post this for ages! Unfortunately, my computer decided to have a hissy fit and delete Microsoft Word, leaving me pretty much screwed. *kicks computer* The upside is that I have finished the story so updates will be made as soon as I find time to type them up. :)**

**Reviews are love.**

**~Menthol Pixie**

** Prologue**

Sam couldn't remember how long he'd been in this place, but it had been long enough for the shackles to bite into his skin, drawing blood; long enough for him to feel the creeping hints of defeat.

If he had been aware enough, Sam would have noted that he was still in the cage he had woken up in that first day – how long ago was that? A week? Month? Year? - small enough that if he'd had the strength, or the will, to move, he wouldn't have had room to stand, although it was wide enough to fit another two or three people. The cage was in the corner of an empty room. The one lone window was draped with thick curtains that, even in the daytime, let in very little light.

Sam hated the dark.

It wasn't a big room, with a door on the far side. It held no purpose other than his captivity and that of those before him. He wondered how many there had been.

Sam didn't see the room, with its cold blankness and metaphorical ghosts. He didn't see the bars or the chains, or the one thing he wanted to see (_Dean, where are you?_). No, Sam saw lots of things, lots of places, lots of people, and it always ended the same; ended with dull vacant eyes and a searing headache that never went away.

There was no respite between the visions, not until whatever he was being dosed with wore off and left him gasping and sobbing in the darkness.

TBC


	2. Chapter 1

**Other People Stop Looking**

** A/N: Set in early Season Two. And I'm so sorry about the wait for this chapter. I swear, I intended to have it up a day or two after the prologue. Unfortunately, I didn't factor in my fiance, who likes to think that he knows his way around the inside of a computer but actually doesn't. (At least I have no illusions. I look at it and think, 'Wow, that is _so_ far over my head...') So long story short, I ended up with no computer for a week (I know, no checking emails, no reading fanfic, having to type up this chapter AGAIN. Really, I don't know how I lived through it.)**

**But here we are now! And as long as my fiance stays away (Hear that, Sean? AWAY!) from the computer then the next chapters should be updated regularly. **

** Chapter One**

It was time to panic.

Dean stood outside the cafe, fingering his triple-shot latte ponderously, trying very hard not to panic. Hunters don't panic. Hunters stayed calm and collected until they solved the case, killed the bad thing, saved the victim. Hunters don't panic. They researched and loaded guns with rock salt and learned exorcisms and got the job done.

Big brothers panicked, and Dean was trying very hard _not_ to. Panicking got you no where. It certainly didn't find wayward little brothers.

So Sam hadn't even made it down the street, according to the smiling chatterbox of a woman inside the cafe. She cheerily informed Dean that, no, she hadn't seen the young man he described, and yes, she had been the only one working all day and she was sure she would have remembered him. Business was slow and only a couple of regulars had been by – that poor old Frank with his heart condition, not feeling too well, oh and the scandal, that Vicky from church was pregnant and no one knew who the father was – and what can I get you?

My brother, Dean wanted to say. Get me my brother and I'll forgive you for being so damned happy, but instead he asked for coffee, because hunters and big brothers both need caffeine if they're going to turn a town upside down.

There was no hunt. They were only in this stupid place because it had been getting late and Sam was cranky and Dean was hungry and the Impala was almost out of gas and stopping for the night had seemed like a good idea, until the next morning when Sam went out for coffee and didn't come back, and why,_ why _did it seem like the kid had a glowing neon sign above his head proclaiming 'Take Me Home' to all the supernatural creepy crawlies?

Dean was gonna kick that kids ass when he found him, or maybe he'd just put him on a leash.

The coffee tasted burnt, bitter, but Dean wasn't really paying attention to the taste anyway, busy retracing his steps – what should have been Sam's steps – searching for a clue. The day was overcast but there was no rain to wash away any evidence. The pavement was dry. There were no other routes Sam would've taken, no other coffee shops he could have been to. It just didn't make sense.

Dean dug his phone out of his pocket, slopping coffee onto his hand, and hit redial. Just like the dozen or so tries before it went straight to '_This is Sam, leave a message_.'

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, shoving his phone back in his pocket and wiping his hand on his jeans.

Where the hell was Sam?

XXX

Sam woke in degrees. Senses switched back online one by one. First was the dry cottony taste in his mouth, the dull ache in his head that made him wonder how much he'd had to drink the night before. Then came the realization that he was lying on a hard, flat surface, his hip and neck protesting from too long in the same position. On the floor. Why was he on the floor? Definitely had way to much to drink last night. He couldn't even remember drinking.

Sam shifted slightly, trying to find some relief and the grind of metal against metal reached his ears.

His eyes could have been glued shut for all the trouble he had opening them and it was barely worth the effort because he was merely greeted by more darkness. God, he felt sick. _Never_ drinking again. He moved to push himself up but stilled, blinking in the black, and raised a hand to investigate the tug at his wrists.

Chains. _Chains?_ Yes, definitely chains. Blindly, Sam took hold of one and followed it with his fingers until he reached its end. It wrapped around a vertical bar and looped back to his other wrist. He tugged at it experimentally but there was no give. He raised his other hand to explore further and felt his stomach sink as each hand found more bars as far as he could reach.

He was in a cage.

Not hungover, concussed. This was not good. Letting himself slowly sink back to the ground, he willed himself to think through the sludge he'd once called his brain, looking for some clue as to where he was, how he got there, but the best he could dredge up was a vague memory of stepping out of a motel room with the goal of fresh coffee in mind. He couldn't pick out any warning signs or recollect any struggle.

He turned his eyes back to the endless darkness around him, searching fruitlessly for shapes in the black.

"Dean?"

His voice echoed back to him, hoarse and scratchy, bouncing off the walls of what had to be empty space. There was no reply and Sam wasn't surprised. Of course Dean wouldn't have let himself be captured like this. It was always Sam who was stuck playing damsel in distress, waiting for his brother to rescue him.

"Hey!" he called, waited, listened to it echo back.

Sam sighed, then shivered. The cold had only just registered. He reached down to search his pockets for something to pick the locks of his cuffs, then stopped, huffing out a gasp of disbelief. He had no pockets. No pockets because he was barefoot and clad only in boxers and a t-shirt.

The idea of someone – and it had to be a person. Creatures didn't usually bother undressing their victims – stripping him while unconscious made his skin tingle uncomfortably. He felt violated.

"Hey!" he yelled again, but the answering silence swallowed his voice.

XXX

Sam didn't remember falling asleep. He had no idea how much time had passed before he was woken by the sudden flare of blinding florescent lights. Red burned hot behind his closed eyelids and he pressed his arm over his face.

The footsteps were loud and purposeful, two sets, heading towards him. He forced himself to open his eyes against the harsh lighting, moving his arm minutely so he could squint out from under it.

It took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust enough to see and by the time they had, two men were outside the cage. He couldn't make out their features. They stood, silhouetted, one of them fumbling with keys. Sam heard the tinkling as the man pressed one into the lock, then the door creaked open.

"Who are you?" he forced out, trying to will his vision into focusing around the bursts of colour in his retinas.

The men's heads turned to look at each other.

"Jacob said not to talk to it," one of them said, his voice gravelly and with a slight lisp, as if he was missing a few teeth.

_It_. The word grated unpleasantly, sending prickling fingers of foreboding up Sam's spine. Who were these people?

"What do you want?" he tried again, closing his eyes. His head hurt.

He was met with stoney silence, then the cage door clanged shut. He wrenched his eyes open and saw the retreating backs of the two men.

"Hey!" he called, but the men kept walking and he immediately lost interest when he spotted the paper cup in front of him. He pushed himself up on his elbow and reached out a chained arm, snagging the cup and tipping the water down his parched throat. It was lukewarm but it was wet and soothing, and gone too fast.

He finished the last drop just as the lights flicked off and he was again left alone in darkness.

XXX

It was late. And dark. Too late and dark to do any searching that would be worthwhile.

Dean paced the motel room, full of tense, anxious energy. He hadn't seen Sam since the morning, didn't even know what time that was because he'd been more than half asleep, offering Sam nothing more than a drowsy order for black coffee and bagels.

Bagels. God, Dean could kick himself. Seriously, if he'd known it was the last thing he was going to say to Sam he would've thought of something more meaningful.

Who was he kidding? If he'd known it was the last thing he was going to say to Sam he would've tied the kid to the bed and never let him leave.

So while Dean was sleeping, Sam had managed to get himself snatched by something. This would be a lot easier if he had something to go on, but no hunt meant no monster to find. No monster whose habits and hide outs he could track to Sam.

There was nothing. Dean had walked every possible path to and from the cafe and motel a dozen times and nothing was out of place. There were no signs of struggle anywhere, no scuffed up dirt, no blood splatters (which, though terrible, would have at least given him something to go on). Sam had simply walked out of the motel and off the face of the earth, as far as Dean could tell.

And now, it was late and dark and Dean alternated between pacing like a caged animal, trying Sam's cell even though he knew it was pointless and, when he could bring himself to sit still, furiously researching the town for any clues as to where Sam might have gone and what could have taken him.

The TV was on. The silence when it was off just emphasized the absence of Sam's usual chatter.

Actually, everything emphasized the absence of Sam.

XXX

It was maddening, being left alone in the cold silence of the black, empty room. He had no idea where he was, why he'd been taken or who by. No idea where Dean was or how long he'd been there. He had nothing to distract himself, couldn't even count the bars on his cage because it was too dark to see and he couldn't reach them.

A part of him figured that this was part of the plan, keep him in the dark, try to wear him down or scare him. All he had to do was stay calm, stay reasonable and try to think of a way out. Another part of him was building towards screaming that he _had_ to get out, that he was gonna go nuts if they left him here much longer.

Even straining his ears, he couldn't make out any noises other than the chattering of his chains. No footsteps or voices elsewhere in the house, assuming it's a house he's in. No mumble of a TV or radio. Maybe the room was soundproof, or maybe there was just no one around. Maybe they left. Maybe that was their plan.

He wished they'd bring him more water. It had been hours since the last cup, his tongue had lost all moisture and his lips were cracking, but aside from that he just really wanted to know whether there was someone there or if this was it, really wanted the light turned on, if only for a moment because the blindness was smothering and suffocating and maybe if he could see he could find a way out, because no matter how many times his fingers search the space around him they always come back empty of any device that could help him.

XXX

The two men came back, an unimaginably long time later. Sam guessed it was morning by the faint glow of the curtains covering the lone window. There was no light let in, merely a dull gray amongst the black, until a switch was flipped and unmercifully bright artificial lighting lit up the room. It reminded Sam of the lights in hospitals, determined to illuminate every single square inch of the place, leave nothing in shadows, allow no place to hide.

Sam watched this time, rallying against the burning white light, ignoring the sting and tears that built up in his eyes. One of the men didn't look much older than Dean; blonde, with a scar that ran the length of his left cheek. He wore jeans and sneakers, a dark hoodie. He held a cup of water.

The other was much older and reminded Sam a bit of Bobby, with a baseball cap perched on a thinning head of hair, a scraggly beard freckled with gray, but his eyes were dark, his mouth set in a hard, disapproving line. They were both armed.

Sam hauled himself up so he was sitting with his back against the bars, one of his arms held against his abdomen by the lacking length of chain.

"What do you want?" He squinted against the light. "What's going on?"

Scar-face seemed to hesitate, his eyes flicking to meet Sam's.

"Don't talk to it," Baseball Cap nudged him sharply, "We don't know what it can do."

Scar-face dropped his gaze immediately. "Thought Jacob said it had visions," he muttered belligerently.

"Who's Jacob?" Sam asked.

"Shut up," Baseball Cap growled, hand hovering over his weapon as if itching to use it. "We don't know what else it can do."

Sam pushed himself up straighter, trying to raise his hands into the position of surrender, spoke clearly and reasonably, "Look, I don't know what's going on. You've got the wrong person-"

"Shut up!" Baseball Cap roared this time, his face twisting as he drew his gun from his waistband. In one smooth movement he had it aimed at Sam's face, safety off.

Sam cringed back against the bars. Cold washed through his bloodstream, he felt his heart speed up automatically.

There was the longest, tensest moment of silence. The man held his position and Sam kept his lips firmly shut, didn't even dare to breathe. Finally, Baseball Cap tilted his head at his companion, who immediately took a set of keys from his jeans pocket, almost dropping them in his haste to get the door open.

Baseball Cap kept Sam pinned against the bars, not daring to move, while Scar-face crouched down in the cages opening and pushed the cup of water forwards. Sam watched from the corner of his eye, unwilling to tear his gaze away from the firearm while it was such an immediate threat. He didn't reach for the water until the men were almost out the door, snatching it up just before the room was plunged into darkness.

XXX

Dean woke from his few hours of fitful sleep as soon as the rising sun peaked through the mandatory gap in the motel curtains. He swore halfheartedly at the light as he stumbled to the coffee-maker. It gurgled to life with a flick of the switch and Dean thunked down at the table, booting up the laptop and rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes.

Almost 24 hours now, since Sam had walked out the door and didn't walk back in. The possibilities were endless; vengeful spirit, ghouls, golems, werewolves, vampires, take your pick. But the town was quiet. No sign of anything supernatural that Dean could find. No suspicious missing persons reports to look into. No murders that baffled police.

Sam was so much better at research than Dean. The kid could pick out patterns and make connections in a way that would've impressed even John Winchester, had he still been alive.

Dean pushed all thoughts of his father aside as he made his way back to the coffee machine, pouring himself a cup of sugarless black. No point bringing all that up now. He needed his mind clear, not wallowing over the fact that if Sam was... gone, then he'd be the last Winchester left standing.

Dean couldn't think of anything worse.

XXX

The next time the light flicked on, hours and hours later, only the younger man with the scar appeared. Sam shut his eyes, listening to the footsteps as the man came closer. He waited for the sound of keys but the footsteps stopped a few feet from him and silence fell. Sam squinted up against the glare.

Scar-face stood there, watching him with the strangest expression on his face, eyes glum and serious, gnawing on his lower lip in a way that was so reminiscent of Dean that Sam could have cried. He wanted out. He wanted his brother to come and find him and get him out of there. He was cold and hungry and thirsty and he wanted his clothes back and the chains gone and to not be locked up in a cage like an animal.

That train of thought would get him no where.

Scar-face's weapon was tucked in his waistband, and he held another paper cup of water. Sam wondered vaguely whether there was some way to use paper cups as a means for his escape but he squashed the inane thought quickly. Even he wasn't McGyver enough for that.

The man stood there, making no move to unlock the cage, Sam growing more and more uncomfortable under his gaze. Finally, Scar-face cleared his throat.

"What's your name?"

Sam startled at the unexpected question, unsure of whether to answer or not. The last time he'd spoken had gotten him a gun aimed at his face. Not something he wanted a repeat performance of.

"I'm Damien," the man moved on, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Sam didn't reply, and slowly – as if Sam was an animal he didn't want to spook – Damien crouched down so they were closer to eye level.

"Can you hear me?" he asked.

Sam flipped the question over in his mind, trying to figure out what Damien's motives were. Trick question, maybe. Answer and get shot. No, thanks.

"Are you thirsty?"

Sam's eyes snapped back to the cup. Tempting. He watched a drip roll slowly over the man's hand.

"Hey," Damien fought for his attention. "You want water?"

Slowly, keeping an apprehensive eye on the gun, Sam nodded. Damien took the keys from his pocket and slotted one into the lock. He paused.

"Don't... try anything weird, okay?" He sounded almost worried and Sam wondered what exactly the man thought he was going to do while chained up in a cage, but he nodded his agreement anyway and stayed completely still as he watched Damien open the cage and crawl in, placing the cup just within his reach before hastily retreating, closing and locking the door behind him immediately.

He was forgotten almost completely as soon as Sam had the cup in his hands. This one he didn't drink all of straight away. Instead he took a sip and held it in his mouth for a moment, letting it roll over his tongue before allowing it to slowly slide down his parched throat. He drank half the cup before setting it aside carefully.

"The last one we had screamed."

Sam looked up, startled, unsure of what Damien meant.

"You don't scream." Sam couldn't be certain but he felt that there was an unspoken '_Not yet_' at the end of that. "Are you scared?"

Sam was growing more and more confused the longer the man stood there. The visit seemed to have no purpose other than to satiate Damien's desire to talk, and Sam wasn't sure what saying the wrong thing would do to him.

Damien scratched absently at his scar. "I've been a hunter for five years, but I'll never forget the sound of that girl... thing... screaming." He considered Sam, "You all look so human. Why is that?"

"I am human," Sam said.

"What do you use your powers for?"

"I don't have powers," Sam denied.

Damien shook his head impatiently, "Don't lie. We know."

Sam fell silent, and eventually the man left.

XXX

No one came for hours. Sam figured it must have been night because the dull gray glow was gone. The darkness was complete.

Two days. Two nights. Dean must have been frantic. Sam wondered what his brother was doing at that moment. Did he have any leads? Was he close? _Please let him be close_.

Sam drifted but the gnawing in his stomach kept him from slipping fully into sleep. The cup of water was long since gone. He lay on his side on the floor, uncomfortable but no position he could find was comfortable, using his fingers to inspect every link of the chain that held him, looking for a weak spot. His wrists hurt and it was cold and he would have given absolutely anything for Dean to appear by the cage, jingling keys in one hand and giving him a cocky grin. He could almost hear his brothers voice, a mix of fury and relief, saying, "_Don't worry, Sammy, I'll have you out in a minute._"

Sam had never wanted to see the inside of a motel room so badly. He lay in the darkness and tried to sleep, wondering whether Dean was sleeping. He doubted it. Dean was looking for him. Dean would find him.

XXX

Dean had no idea where to look.

The trail, or lack thereof, had gone cold. He'd turned the town upside down, researched every building that could possibly house a ghost, ghoul, zombie, shape-shifter, whatever. He'd been '_this close_' to beginning a door to door search of every house in the whole Goddamned town, using whatever excuse or badge that he could come up with, when night had fallen on the second day of Sam's disappearance.

He was on what must have been his eighth or ninth cup of coffee and the words on the laptop were blurring slightly.

He'd hacked into the police records but no one matching Sam's description had been arrested in the last two days. He'd checked the hospital but had again come back empty handed. No John Does admitted. No, don't recognize the guy in that photo, sorry. And after two hours of silent panic and stern talks to himself, he had built up the courage to check the morgue.

Sam wasn't there. Sam wasn't dead. Dean was sure that he would have felt... _something_ if Sam was, but while there weren't words to describe the relief he felt at the morgue being a dead end (no pun intended), he'd take hospitalized or arrested Sam over vanished-into-thin-air Sam any day.

People went missing every day. Teenagers ran away from home, children were abducted by estranged parents, men and women were murdered and dumped somewhere that no one would ever find them. People were taken and never seen again.

It would all seem hopeless but Dean couldn't stop thinking of some half-remembered quote from Sam, a little thing that Sam probably didn't even remember saying, but Dean clung to it like a lifeline.

_"People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them."_

Dean wasn't going to stop looking. No way. He was going to find Sam.

He'd called Bobby when his ideas had run out. The older hunter had gone quiet when Dean had told him the name of the town he was in, and had told Dean firmly, "You stay where you are. I'll be there in 24 hours," then he hung up.

So Bobby knew something, or thought he knew something, but it wasn't getting Dean any closer to Sam and 24 hours is a long, long time.

Dean waited and paced – he was going to wear out the carpet – and tried very hard not to focus on Sam's duffel that sat forlornly by his bed. He couldn't bring himself to pick up Sam's things; the shirt dropped on the bathroom floor, the book, spine-bent and dog-eared, that must have fallen off the bedside table at some point, a stack of research on some creature – because Sam's such a geek he researches monsters in his free time – left on the table next to the laptop. It was like everything was waiting for Sam to return, and Dean couldn't help the irrational hope that if he just left everything in place, frozen in time, Sam would find his way back to it.

XXX

"What are you?"

Sam wearily lifted his head from his knees. Damien was crouched low, regarding him with his usual suspicious curiosity.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I want to know what you are. What are your intentions?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't have any intentions."

Damien rubbed his fingers together like he was itching for a cigarette, cocked his head to look at Sam.

"Five years of hunting and you kids... it's something different, you know?"

Sam didn't know, had no idea what Damien meant, so he stayed silent.

"They're coming, you know. Jacob's coming. Now. You should prepare yourself."

"What's he gonna do?"

Even Damien looked distinctly unsettled by the idea of Jacob's visit. "Nothing good, kid."

XXX

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 2

**Other People Stop Looking**

**A/N: Hello everyone! Okay, so this chapter is shorter than the rest – not sure how that happened, I like to keep them all as even as I can, but the natural stopping point came earlier than I thought and that's just the way it goes. On the upside, it being shorter meant that I could get it up earlier.**

**Also, thanks everyone who wished me happy birthday for the 17th. Me thinks it's some sexy Winchester boys birthday today (at least in NZ time. I think it's the 18th still in America?). Anyway, Happy Birthday Jared!**

**Warning: There is a wee scene in here that may be upsetting for some people. Nothing hugely gory and graphic but be prepared.**

** Chapter Two**

Jacob was a tall man with heavy eyebrows and a dark head of hair. He was older than Damien, younger than the other man, and Sam placed him in his late thirties. He dressed like a hunter; solid boots and cargo pants, a long coat with the dozen or so pockets that hunters needed for salt and charms and concealed weapons and such. His demeanor suggested authority and he looked at Sam with clinical detachment.

"We'll start with 10mls," he informed Baseball Cap, and Sam got the feeling that Jacob was a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question, because Baseball Cap nodded quickly and pulled out a capped syringe.

Sam backed up, an automatic reaction despite there being no where for him to go. His eyes flicked uncomfortably over the three men.

"It never ceases to amaze me how human they look," Jacob observed thoughtfully.

"You're hunters." It wasn't a question and it wasn't answered. Jacob's steel gray eyes regarded him coldly. Baseball Cap held the syringe up to the light and tapped it gently, expelling air bubbles.

"What is that?" Sam asked apprehensively. The solution was a diluted brown. Sam wondered whether it was too much to hope for Dean to burst through the door.

Jacob approached the cage, addressing Sam for the first time. "We've had others like you, you know. Nasty little abominations, but some of them have been... useful."

There was no where left to back up to, the bars of the cage were pressing hard against his spine, and Jacob bent to unlock the door.

"You've got it wrong," Sam protested in a last ditch attempt, fear curling up in his stomach. "You've got the wrong person."

Jacob cocked his head to the side, a leer spreading across his face. "I think 'person' is too strong a word for what you are, don't you?"

The cage of the door swung open and Jacob stepped aside to let the older man enter. He had to hunch over to fit in the small space. Sam eyed him warily as he and the syringe approached, stinging from Jacob's implication. He caught a glimpse of Damien's anxious face and then Baseball Cap was looming above him.

Sam pressed himself impossibly harder against the bars, waited until the last minute, then struck out with his unchained limbs, sweeping the mans legs out from under him.

He went down with a grunt and, taking into account his age and stature, Sam expected him to take longer to get up. His misjudgment was disastrous and next thing he knew, the mans hands were fisted in his hair, slamming his head back against the unyielding metal bars.

Pain exploded in the back of his skull, winding itself around to invade the space behind his eyes, his vision dulling to red. Somewhere in the midst of this he felt his arm being dragged above his head and pinned to the cage wall. The small sting on the soft inside of his elbow was barely registrable in the middle of his skull caving in but Sam felt it and had enough presence of mind to realize that he was in some seriously deep shit.

And then... he wasn't in the cage anymore. The pain in his head amped up unbelievably and the image of a room fell into place around him. It was neat and tidy, apart from a few dolls scattered on the floor. There was a poster of one of the Disney princesses on the wall and in the bed, under a soft pink duvet, was a sleeping child, her serene face washed with a glow from the nightlight.

Sam barely had time to be confused at the sudden change of location before there was a scratching at the window, like fingernails being drawn along the glass and then, slowly, the lock opened with a small click and the window began to rise.

He went to move forward but was held in place by invisible bonds. Trapped, he could only observe as a dark shadow stole into the room and hovered over the girl. He saw her twitch, as if sensing the presence, and her sleepy eyes blinked open, gazing at the shadow in drowsy incomprehension.

A split-second glimpse of terror dawning on the girl's face, then the shadow pounced. The pain in Sam's head reached unbearable levels as he watched the horrific scene play out in front of him, and gradually the room faded and the girl's screams were drowned out by Sam's own.

XXX

"What did you see?"

Sam couldn't stop screaming, couldn't stop seeing soft blonde hair matted with blood and eyes trapped in terror but without the light of life, tiny hands falling limp.

"What did you see?"

He was fighting instinctively, struggling to reach the girl even though it was too late, and he felt warmth on his wrists, metal grinding and slamming against metal, and then a boot to the stomach.

Sam's screams cut off to be replaced by frantic gasps for air.

"What did you see?"

"A girl," Sam choked out between dry heaves and painful intakes of breath, "A shadow."

"A demon?"

Sam shook his head, which was one of his very worst ideas ever. His brain pulsed angry red. "Don't know."

A hand twisted in his hair and wrenched his head up. He opened his eyes to a florescent lightning bolt to the brain. Jacob said something but Sam couldn't hear him over the roar of blood in his ears and his stomach was threatening imminent revolt.

"... demon? Was it a demon?" Jacob shook him and he felt his brain crash against his skull.

"No... don't think... so."

Jacob released him and he crumpled back against the bars, panting and trying to curl in on himself as if it would take the pain away.

XXX

Jacob didn't care about the girl, or about the next three people Sam saw meeting a grisly end. It didn't take Sam long to realize that Jacob was after demons, in particular the yellow-eyed demon, and no amount of pleading and begging could convince him to save the people Sam saw.

They left the lights on now, but Sam had withdrawn his wish that they would. His head felt like it was caving in, sending the rest of his body out on strike.

When he opened his eyes there was a cup of water, taunting him just within his reach, but no matter how much he wanted it – and God, he wanted it – he couldn't convince his arm to reach out and take it.

His neck ached from the tilt of resting his head on the hard floor, his hip and side protesting the prolonged stasis in one position and, as curled into himself as he was, there was no warmth to draw from the wooden floorboards, but Sam stayed where he was, shivering, in turns trying to sleep around the agony in his head or staring at the cup of water, willing his unresponsive arm to reach out and take it.

It went on for what felt like years. Time had ceased to make sense. It could have been day or night. He could have been there a week or a month. Maybe longer. It felt like forever.

Jacob and his cronies would come in with their syringe full of death, stick him with it and wait for a report of what he saw, once, twice, three times a day. Maybe more. Sam was given enough beatings for not speaking fast enough after each vision that he began to report it as he saw it, his voice sounding strangely disconnected to his own ears, before the crushing pain and devastation that followed could take over.

Then Jacob upped the dosage, and one vision would spin into another and another. His head was filled with images of murder after murder, people torn apart, feasted upon, drained, by the things that hid in the darkness, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Sometimes Damien came alone and stared at him with a mix of caution and pity, like he was trying to work Sam out. He brought water and sometimes helped Sam drink it if he couldn't do it himself. He brought food, too, sometimes, but despite being unable to remember when he last ate, Sam had no appetite, couldn't keep anything down and soon stopped trying.

His nose bled almost constantly, to the point where Sam wondered vaguely if it was possible for a person to bleed out through their nose. His mouth tasted like metal and it made him feel sick, or maybe that was the pain in his head that never, never went away.

Finally – finally – the dosage reached its limit, the syringe full of brown liquid death, and Sam thought that it couldn't possibly get worse.

Then Jacob took him downstairs.

XXX

"Took your time."

"Well, nice to see you, too, Dean," Bobby grumbled as he stepped into the motel room. "Not like I just drove almost two days straight to get here."

"I was expecting you yesterday," Dean said dully.

Bobby sighed, and took off his cap to run a hand through his hair before replacing it. "I know. Sorry. It took longer than I thought it would to get the information I needed."

Dean glowered, "This is the information you couldn't have just told me over the damn phone?"

Bobby raised his eyebrows at the oldest Winchester, "Boy, I'm here to help you out. Don't you take that tone with me, it ain't gonna help you find Sam, and if I'd told you over the phone you would've rushed in like a flaming idjit and got your stubborn ass killed. Now, if you'll stop acting like a jackass I'll tell you what I know."

Dean had the decency to look chastised and Bobby immediately softened his demeanor. Close inspection of the younger hunter revealed dark circles under his eyes, as if he'd barely slept since Sam went missing – hell, he probably hadn't. His jaw was stubbled, clothes rumpled like he hadn't bothered to change. The motel room was littered with crumpled paper, research upon research, and no answers. Kid must've been at the end of his rope, and Bobby sympathized, he cared about Sam too, but it was barely seven in the morning, he'd been driving all night and what he really needed was a strong cup of coffee.

Dean, to his credit, stayed completely silent while Bobby brewed the coffee in the rusty old machine on the bench, though he paced like a caged animal. Bobby added a dash of whiskey to the two mugs of black coffee he had poured, and brought them over to the table, taking a seat and placing one of the mugs in front of the empty chair.

"Jacob Long."

Dean's brow furrowed. "Who?" he asked, as he gave up his pacing and glaring and took the free seat, wrapping his hands around the coffee mug.

"He's a hunter," Bobby started, staring solemnly at the tabletop, "Or was. I thought he'd retired but I've heard a few whispers. He lives in the big house on the hill. Everglade Hall, the property's called. You know it?"

Dean nodded. Hell, the kid probably knew every inch of this town by now, and the place was almost a ruddy mansion. Pretty hard to miss.

"You think we should ask him about Sam?" Dean asked doubtfully.

"Hell no." Bobby took a generous swig of his coffee. "See, Jacob was always the sort to take payment for his hunts. Putting a price on human lives, like. He specialized in demons. Was damn good at it too, although his treatment of them afterwards wasn't very... host-friendly."

"What does this have to do with Sam?" Dean tossed his head impatiently.

"I'm getting to it. You just ain't gonna like it."

Dean ran a weary hand over his face, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, Bobby could see how he'd reigned in his emotions, struggling to set them aside so he could focus.

"What is it, Bobby?"

Bobby took another gulp of coffee, stalling and took his cap from his head and twisted it between his hands. "Those whispers I've been hearing... seems like, before Gordon Walker went to jail, him and Jacob were spending a lot of time together."

Bobby risked a glance at Dean's face and started counting. He got to three before Dean exploded, shoving his chair back hard enough to topple it over and letting out a string of curse words that impressed even Bobby. He prowled to the wall, both hands curled into fists, but managed to stop himself just short of actually punching it. He stood there, with his back to Bobby for a long moment, and Bobby pretended he couldn't see the slight shake of his tense shoulders.

"Okay," Dean cleared his throat surreptitiously. "Okay, so, you think this Jacob has Sam. How do you know he hasn't already... how do you know Sam isn't...?"

He couldn't bring himself to say it – head down, eyes averted – and Bobby put him out of his misery as fast as possible.

"It's not really Jacob's style to shoot first and ask questions later. He'll be trying to learn things."

Dean looked up sharply, "How does he do that?"

Bobby shook his head. "I don't know, kid, but we're gonna have to move fast."

XXX

TBC...


	4. Chapter 3

**Other People Stop Looking**

** A/N: Hello out there! *listens to the echo* Anyone still around? Sorry for the late update. I'm experiencing severe computer problems at the moment. Problems that led to the purchase of a brand new laptop (which makes me very happy because I've never owned and always wanted a laptop!) except that I can't get it to connect to the internet. So I'm still on my crappy old computer unfortunately, until we figure out what's wrong with the brand new machine.**

**Hope that you all enjoy this chapter (I had to type it up twice so you better!). Please review! They're better than virtual hugs!**

** Chapter Three**

Sam lay on his back, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. He couldn't stop the twitching in his limbs and each time a spasm hit it jerked the chains so that they bit into his already mangled wrists, but Sam barely felt it.

Ankle shackles had been added after he'd kicked the old man the first time they'd tried to shoot him up, and he supposed that pretty soon his ankles would be in the same state as his wrists, but he barely cared.

He wondered vaguely where Dean was but even his brother's face was hard to bring to mind, drowned out by images of terror and death. It had been so long since Sam had last seen him...

"Why don't you... zap him or something?"

Sam let his head fall to the side. Huh. How long had Damien been there? He didn't remember hearing him come in. Maybe he hadn't left since bringing Sam back to the cage. Whatever. Sam didn't want to deal with him right then. He just wanted to lie there until it stopped hurting or he stopped existing, whichever came first.

"What?" he asked anyway, because having Damien there, talking to him, was better than being alone and choking on the silence.

"Jacob," Damien explained, glancing furtively towards the door, "Can't you use your powers on him?"

Sam turned his gaze back to the ceiling. It was white, clean, no strange marks to study. "I don't have powers."

"You have visions," Damien's voice helpfully informed him.

"That's not powers," Sam said flatly, "That's... a curse."

He sensed Damien straightening. "I don't think you're evil." He made it sound almost like an accusation.

Sam huffed out a small, humourless laugh, "Thanks."

Damien deflated. Sam caught a glimpse of him gnawing on his lower lip and had a sudden flash of Dean that made his chest hurt.

"There's nothing I can do," Damien worried. "Jacob wont stop. He's obsessed with you... uh..."

Damien's stuttering over what to call him struck Sam as funny, in a morbid kind of way. Sam shook his head helplessly, the image of his brother fading.

"I don't expect you to do anything."

XXX

Everglade Hall was huge. Dean and Bobby had gone over and over the plans of the estate, searching for weak spots, planning ways in and ways out, trying to memorize the layout. Now they sat in the Impala, down the road from the looming mansion, and prepared themselves.

"I think you should wait here."

Bobby raised his eyebrows. "Boy-"

"Bobby," Dean cut him off, "You said this guy's dangerous, and smart. The less people we have going in the less chance we have of being noticed. I can get in, find Sam and get him back here."

"Jacob _is_ dangerous. All the more reason to have me there as back up. Not stuck out here playing getaway driver."

Dean kept his eyes on the dark house. It looked more like a prison in the gloom than anything else. Sam was in there. He was close. He knew it.

"He's my brother, Bobby."

Bobby glowered at him, "You ain't the only one who cares about that kid."

Dean let some of the stiffness leave his shoulders but couldn't quite look Bobby in the eye. "I have to do this," he said quietly, "I have to get him out of there."

Bobby was quiet for a long moment. Dean shifted impatiently.

"You got one hour," the older hunter finally acquiesced, his voice gruff. "Then I'm coming in after you."

Dean nodded, felt his pockets, checked he had all his supplies, and reached for the door handle. "I'll be back with Sam."

The back of the house seemed to be his best bet. There were no flood lights that lit up at his movement, no cameras that he could see, and one of the windows was loose. A little bit of jimmying would have him in soon enough...

It was fast approaching a week since Sam had vanished and Dean had no doubt that time was running out. His stomach was tied up in knots, anxious about what he'd find. Despite Bobby's theory that Jacob took his time, Dean was far from reassured.

He'd just managed to pry the window open, with a small smirk of success, when the back of his head exploded, stars burst in front of his eyes, and everything went black.

XXX

When Dean came to, he was being unceremoniously dragged through hallways. It took several moments for him to reorientate himself around the bashing his head had just received and remember where he was, and by the time he managed to get his feet under him he'd been pulled to a stop outside a pair of large intricately carved wooden doors.

His captors were two men. One was in his fifties, his beard greying, his eyes hard. The younger man couldn't have been much older than Dean himself, his face turned away as he removed one of his hands to knock on the wooden doors. A deep voice permitted entrance and the door was pushed open.

The room was a mix of a study and a library. Books lined two of the walls from floor to ceiling, all neatly stacked in order of size, and behind a large ornate desk sat a man with a beefy neck and bushy eyebrows. He looked up expectantly and, upon taking in the sight before him, closed the folder he'd been looking over and stood.

"Ah, Dean, isn't it? I was wondering when you'd show up."

Dean glared. "Where's Sam?"

The man – Jacob, he assumed – looked at him with vague disinterest. "Is that what you call it?"

Dean clenched his teeth against the rage building up in him, attempted to wrench himself out of the hold of Jacob's two lackeys, but the men were strong, gripping him hard enough to leave bruises.

"Where is he?" he demanded again, low and deadly.

Jacob glanced at his wristwatch, "Actually, I was just about to begin another round of tests. You can watch."

Jacob led the way. The men moved fast, Dean stumbling as he tried to keep his feet under him, the grips on his biceps unyielding.

Jacob's base of operations was as big on the inside as the outside suggested, with elegant furniture and ancient portraits on the walls, but the guy was in serious need of a housekeeper. The place smelt musty, like earth and decay, layers of dust on the surfaces. Even the carpet puffed out small mushroom clouds as their feet tromped down the long hallways.

"What have-" Dean was cut off by an elbow ramming into his side, knocking the air out of him. He was dragged a few feet before he managed to collect himself, and by the time he finished gasping and coughing, they had stopped.

Jacob produced a key and slipped it into the lock of a single door, carved much the same as the one to his office.

The room beyond the door was pitch black. The light that flowed in from the hallway illuminated a few meters but showed only wooden floorboards of a seemingly empty room. There was no scuffle of movement from the depths.

Dean opened his mouth to demand answers but, with a flick of Jacob's wrist, fluorescent lights lit up the room and Dean's words died in his mouth.

In the far right corner, _in a damn cage_, a figure – curled on the floor, dark haired and clad in only boxers and a t-shirt – shifted a chained arm over it's face to block out the harsh lighting.

Momentarily forgetting his captors – forgetting everything, everything but Sam – Dean tried to move forward but was jerked back immediately by the firm hands that held him. His vision tunnelled, staining a wrathful red on the outskirts of his brother.

"You let him go or I swear to God-"

"Dean," Jacob cut him off, his tone suggesting that he was being entirely rational and Dean was over-reacting. "You need to wake up. That thing's not your brother. Hasn't been since Azazel claimed it as a baby."

"If you've hurt him-"

"Be reasonable, Dean. I've seen what it can do. It's not natural. It's just another soldier in Azazel's war-"

"Sam's not an it!"

Jacob huffed an exaggerated sigh, and retrieved a small vial from his pocket, a syringe from his other, and plunged the needle through the soft cork, into the murky brown liquid.

"Figured this little concoction out with the last one we had." Jacob sounded pleased with himself. "Very complicated, and deadly if you're not careful, but it works."

Jacob approached the cage.

"God damn it, if you touch him I'll rip your lungs out!" Dean growled.

"Not in much of a position to be making threats there, Dean."

Jacob entered the cage – Dean kicking and fighting the whole way – and crouched down next to Sam, pulling his arm away from his face. Sam moaned, turning his head into the wooden floor, but made no attempt that Dean could see to reclaim his limb, even as Jacob stuck the needle in – Dean caught a flash of bruised skin – and depressed the plunger, quickly backing out of the cage and locking it behind him when he was done.

Dean was so angry he couldn't see straight, rage mixed in with terror at seeing Sam so motionless, apparently unable to defend himself in the slightest. Through the swirl of emotions, he could sense the shift in atmosphere in the men, all now on higher alert and he could tell without looking that all three had their gazes trained on his brother.

For a moment nothing happened. Sam lay prone in the same position and everyone waited. Then Sam gasped, back arching just a little before settling, his eyes flew open but were focussed on something Dean couldn't see.

"Talk!" Jacob commanded.

Sam's voice barely reached Dean's ears, all wispy and broken words, and all thoughts of how good it would be to simply hear Sam speak again went out the window.

"...it's a... poltergeist, maybe... the kitchen cupboards are... he's screaming..."

One of the men holding Dean – the older one – shifted impatiently. "Why don't we just kill it? It never says anything useful."

Dean growled, low and threatening, in the back of his throat, as fear gripped his stomach, but Jacob dismissed the man's opinion with a wave of his hand.

"It might eventually. I still have more experiments for it."

"_He's not an it!_" Dean snarled furiously.

This drew Jacob's attention away from the cage, and his attentive expression turned hard and cold. He strode the few steps to Dean and leant in close to his face, encroaching his personal space.

"You may think that's your brother in there, but that thing is no better than the rest that you hunt. It needs to be studied, so we can find out how to kill the rest of them."

Rage was reaching breaking point, even as a small voice in the back of his mind fruitlessly insisted that he stay clear-headed. Dean tried to jerk forwards but his captors help firm.

"I'm gonna kill you!" he spat.

Jacob just looked at him contemptuously, then spun on his heel and headed for the door.

"Put him in the cage," he ordered over his shoulder.

Dean didn't fight it. He let the men manhandle him over to the cage and shove him inside, then watched as they retreated. With a thud, they shut the door behind them.

Dean turned back to his brother, crawled the distance between them until he knelt at Sam's side, hands ghosting over him, almost afraid to touch.

"Sam?" he murmured softly, "Can you hear me?"

Sam's eyes moved but they weren't following his voice. They were tracking something he couldn't see, lost in someone else's nightmare.

"A girl... running... she can hear it in the trees... it's so close..."

"Sammy?" Dean leant over so his face was touching the ground, right in front of Sam, but Sam just looked through him.

"...it's tearing her apart..."

Dean shook his shoulder lightly, "Come on, Sam, snap out of it."

It was no use. Dean recognised the blank glaze of a vision and knew that Sam wasn't with him, but somewhere else, watching someone else. There was a moment of silence, punctuated only by Sam's ragged breathing, before he moved on to the next scene.

"A lake..."

Dean sat up straight, letting out a helpless sigh, and worked his arms out of his jacket. Carefully, he lay it over Sam's trembling form, tucking it around his shoulders. He gazed at him for another moment, taking a deep breath to steady himself, before turning his back on Sam and scuttling over to the cage door.

"Gonna get you outta here, Sammy," he muttered, even though he was certain that Sam couldn't hear him.

He searched his pockets and came up empty. Damn. They must have frisked him after that vicious whack to the head. At least he still had his clothes, because apparently these men weren't above taking those either.

Dean inspected the lock. It looked like it would be easy enough to pick but no matter how many times he checked his pockets, his boots, searched the small cage, a lock-pick showed no sign of miraculously appearing.

So, plan B. Dean planted his butt on the ground, leaning back and bracing his hands on the smooth floorboards. He pulled his leg up to his chest, aimed, concentrated, and kicked out, hitting the lock dead centre with his heel. The metal didn't so much as groan, although the muscles in his leg did. He tried a few more times until both legs were aching and he finally clued in to the fact that, even if he got the door open, he'd still have to find a way to get Sam out of the chains that shackled him to the bars.

They were so screwed.

XXX

An hour or so later – although Dean couldn't be sure because his watch had been confiscated – Sam had quietened. No more visions tortured him, but he lay still, his face creased with the lines of a major headache.

"Sam?" Dean placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, "Sammy, it's me. Can you hear me?"

Sam had an arm draped over his eyes and didn't respond. Dean felt woefully impotent, sitting so close to his little brother but unable to ease his suffering, unable to free him. Hell, he didn't even know if Sam realised he was there, and he wished the kid would just wake the hell up already and stop worrying him so damn much.

Plus, sitting in a cage in an empty room? Boring as hell. He'd been trying to loosen the same bar – the one the chains looped around – for at least half an hour now and he was getting no where.

Frustrated, he wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans. He was getting blisters. He sighed, falling back against the bars and letting a hand drop onto Sam's head, absently smoothing the sweat-damp strands of hair. Sam was in desperate need of a shower. He smelt like days-old perspiration with a tang of vomit and blood and sickly sweet chemicals leeching out of his pores.

"It's going to be okay, Sammy," he murmured in the stifling silence of the room. "Don't worry, kid, we're gonna get you out of here."

He wondered what Bobby was doing.

XXX

Bobby was fretting. The hour was almost up and there was no sign of Dean or Sam. Of course, that might not mean anything, just that Dean was being careful, taking his time to do this right and get Sam out safely.

Except that this was Dean, and nothing about that damn kid was careful or slow when his brother was on the line. Nope, it made much more sense to assume that something had gone wrong.

Winchesters; they had the worst luck of any hunter Bobby had met and yet, somehow, they managed to pull it off, often by the skin of their teeth, or sometimes, with a little help from their friends.

Bobby glanced up at the looming hulk of Everglade Hall. There were very few lights on, only a couple on the first floor and, despite this, the house gave off the illusion of cold emptiness, of a history stagnated, for once it must have been a grand manor, and though Jacob must have had money to buy the place – and Bobby could guess where the cold-hearted bastard got that money – it had fallen into disrepair and disregard, so now it stood, huge and threatening, at the top of the hill.

Or maybe it was simply the darkness that made it appear so malevolent, the shadows and the black deeds being carried out by its occupants.

Either way, Bobby was going in.

XXX

Dean heard the key turn in the lock and was on his feet in front of Sam, his stance strong and threatening – well, as much as it could be considering the lacking height of the cage meant he had to hunch over – before the door had even begun to swing open.

Jacob entered, looking unimpressed, with the old man by his side.

"Still haven't come to your senses, I see."

"Go to hell," Dean replied, with as much vigour as he could muster.

Jacob's lips flattened into a thin line, "I'm not the bad guy here, Dean. I'm trying to save people, to get information about this new threat so we can stamp it out before innocent people get hurt."

"You're insane," Dean spat, and then his muscles suddenly locked, his breath stuck in his throat and his lungs froze. Thousands of fire ants crackled over his skin and lightening flashed through his bloodstream. By the time his short-circuiting brain came to the conclusion _'Tazer'_ he was on the ground and Jacob had Sam.

"Hey!" he tried to yell but all that came out was an inarticulate grunt and all his limbs had decided to pack up and go on holiday, making his attempts to rise clumsy and uncoordinated. "Sam!"

The cage door slammed and the jingling of keys told him it had been locked, but Sam was on the other side of the bars, being dragged towards the door by Jacob.

Dean watched through blurred vision as Sam came alive with panic, struggling and twisting, trying to pull away and pry Jacob's hands off his arms, bare feet tripping and sliding on the floorboards, pleas tumbling out of his mouth. "No, no, no, please, no, please..."

But Dean could only lie there, twitching, and watch as his brother was taken away.

XXX

It took maybe fifteen minutes before Dean managed to drag himself off the floor and into a sitting position, all his muscles burning in protest, but one of the men – the youngest one – had come into the room and damned if he was going to stay curled in the foetal position in front of any of those sicko's.

"Where's Sam?" he growled through clenched teeth.

The man shifted uncomfortably, glancing over his shoulder at the door as if he was worried someone would catch him there, then he knelt down in front of the cage door.

"Listen carefully-"

"And why the hell should I listen to you?" Dean ground out.

The man shot him a look of pure annoyance and impatience. "Because I'm trying to help Sam," he hissed, glancing again at the door.

Dean did a double take, stunned, but before he could comment the man pressed on.

"Now listen, when you get out of this room, go right, then take your second left and keep going until you see a white door. It wont be locked, and there are stairs behind it. It goes to the basement. That's where your brother is."

Now he was shoving a key into the lock, trying to twist it and swearing when it wouldn't work, pulling it out and trying another. His hands were shaking. Dean could only imagine the wrath that betrayal would incur in Jacob.

"Why are you doing this?" Dean asked cautiously.

The man stopped his fumbling and looked up. "Because I hunt monsters." He met Dean's eye. "And Sam's not a monster, no matter what Jacob says."

He went back to the keys, tried a different one, and the cage door swung open.

"Go fast."

XXX

The room wouldn't stop spinning, flashes of death and gore intertwining with reality in a sickening whirl of blank eyes and leather straps.

He wanted to throw up, or scream, or maybe just curl up in a ball and will the world away. He wanted Dean back, but he wasn't sure whether Dean had actually been there or if he'd imagined him. He knew that Dean wasn't there now.

"Where is Azazel?"

Sam gazed at Jacob blearily through his eyelashes, "I don' know."

Fire. It burned over every inch of his skin, flashed through his insides and seared in his lungs and up his throat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, and just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. He sagged back against the table he hadn't realised he was arching away from, gasping cool air down his singed throat.

"Where is the demon?" Jacob's voice demanded from his right.

Sam couldn't answer. He didn't know, to say so would get him shocked again and he didn't think he could make his mouth form words anyway. The silence stretched.

This time he heard the charge before it hit, heard it sizzle through the air and leap into his chest. His teeth clenched so hard he thought they might shatter. He felt his heart skip a beat, then the next one, and then the lightening was gone again.

Hands gripped either side of his face and Jacob's cold slash of a mouth loomed above him.

"Where is it? What is it planning?"

Sam moaned, tried to turn his head away but Jacob wouldn't let him. "Don't know. I swear, I don't know. Please..."

It was begging that was beneath him, that went against everything he'd been taught as a Winchester, but he'd been in this house forever, been with these people forever. Certainly long enough to understand that they didn't care if he died during their interrogations, and long enough to know that killing him was their eventual goal.

"Up the charge," Jacob ordered, and for a moment Sam couldn't make sense of it, until he realised that the hunter wasn't talking to him but to the older man at the controls. Panic simply made reality hazier, made drawing breath next to impossible. Sam waited for the inevitable.

"You touch him again and I'll ram my fist so far down your throat..."

Sam missed the rest of the threat. He was too busy trying to stay conscious, thinking dizzily that there might be something to that; Dean being inevitable. At the very least, it was a comforting thought.

Sam couldn't find the energy to lift his head and see what was happening, but his foggy mind registered the sounds of a fight, muffled thuds, curses, something glass shattering. The noise washed over him, swelling and ebbing like the ocean. He almost lost himself in the metaphor and it took him a moment to notice when the sounds stopped.

He waited for a voice, for someone to tell him who had won and who had lost, waited for Dean to free him or for Jacob to kill him.

He held his breath...

"You are far more trouble than you're worth."

Sam deflated, his breath escaping in a sob. Wrong voice. It was Jacob, sounding slightly breathless, and pissed.

"You could've been smart, Dean. Could've joined us." Sam could picture the unhinged hunter shaking his head in mock disappointment. "Now you're forcing my hand. It is... regrettable."

Jacob paused, then gave the order in a flat, dismissive voice. "Kill him."

Sam wanted to scream but he couldn't breathe and he waited and pleaded with God to do something, do anything, save Dean, please, God, save Dean -

And the gunshot was deafening. It felt like it had blown him apart at the atoms and Jacob's following command was just as loud.

"Dispose of the body."

TBC...

A/N: Review!


	5. Chapter 4

**Other People Stop Looking**

**Chapter Four**

**A/N: Well, here we are, guys. The final chapter. I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's been reading this story, with extra special thanks to everyone who has reviewed. It brightens up my day.**

**Now, announcements: I have finished a sequel to Drawing A Blank, as some people mentioned they'd like to see more of Gloria, and hey, is anyone still interested in where Dean was during the time that Sam was in hospital? Well, you can find out. I just need to think of a title (titles are so hard) and type it up, so watch this space.**

**Now, I must go prepare for my son's birthday party. Thanks everyone and I hope you enjoy this final instalment. :D**

XXX

Sam's eyes flew open.

XXX

Dean gave one final lurch in his attempt to free himself from the oldest hunter, but the guy must've been taking steroids or something. His hands were like vices.

"You are far more trouble than you're worth."

Dean growled, baring his teeth at Jacob, his rage animalistic, his gaze constantly straying to the table in between them. He wished he was closer so he could get a clear look at Sam's face, but all his eyes could focus on were the straps holding his brother down.

"You could've been smart, Dean. Could've joined us."

Dean glared at him incredulously. As if.

"Now you're forcing my hand. It is… regrettable." Jacob looked positively gleeful, his eyes lit up with cold malice. "Kill him."

Dean opened his mouth to argue back but the old man spun him round in a move that belied his age and pinned him against the concrete basement wall, he felt cool metal against the side of his head and, if he were a weaker man, he would have closed his eyes against the oncoming bullet. As it was, Dean was a Winchester and he refused to die with his eyes shut. He glared promises of murder and revenge into his captor's face, before flicking his gaze to his brother for one last look. His eyes widened.

Sam hadn't moved since Dean had first entered the basement, save the spasmodic twitching of his hands and feet, but suddenly he was straining against the straps that held him, back arching.

The lights on the rudimentary machine next to the table – some kind of altered car battery – all lit up at once, burning brighter and brighter until one by one the bulbs shattered.

"What are you doing?" Jacob yelled, reaching for the weapon in his waistband.

"I'm not touching it!" the older man denied, which Dean would've thought was pretty obvious because both the man's hands were busy with him.

The machine started whirring. Sam was making some kind of keening noise in the back of his throat, and with an ominous crack, a ceiling beam broke loose and swung down, hitting the man holding Dean with all the force of a speeding truck, knocking him halfway across the room and missing Dean by centimeters.

"Stop!" Jacob howled, eyes on Sam and blazing with fury. His gun came up, and Dean knew with a crushing certainty that he couldn't beat the bullet to Sam. This was it. Now, Dean wanted to close his eyes.

Jacob's finger closed around the trigger. Dean's vision tunneled, seeing the bullets trajectory clearly… and with mere mili-seconds to spare, a plank of wood connected sharply with the side of Jacob's head. He stumbled back, and then dropped.

Dean blinked, his vision clearing, and Bobby stood there, eyes blazing, looking every bit the dangerous hunter that he was as he stood over Jacob with his makeshift weapon in hand.

Their eyes met for a moment, and then they were at the table, Dean working on the straps on Sam's right, Bobby on his left.

Chunks of plaster and dust rained down on them. Dean began to wonder if the whole house was about to come down on their heads. An unearthly wind swept around the room.

"Sam! Sam, stop!"

"Just get the straps undone!" Bobby shouted. "We gotta get out of here!"

Dean glanced up at him and his eyes locked, his mouth opening to shout a warning.

Bobby spun, reaching for the piece of wood he'd discarded in his haste to free Sam. Jacob, on his feet with blood trickling down his face, was raising his gun again, eyes wild and deranged.

Dean shouted something – he didn't know what or who he was shouting to but Jacob suddenly froze, as if held in place, inches from Bobby. A choking noise erupted from the mad hunter's throat and his eyes bulged, mouth open in a silent scream.

It wasn't until Dean smelt the sickly scent of burning flesh, sizzling hair, that he realized what was happening. Electricity. Jacob was getting a taste of his own medicine.

The hunter was held there for an impossibly long moment. Dean couldn't take his eyes off of the grisly sight, before Jacob's rigid body went limp and he slid to the floor without a sound.

Sam slumped against the table, head lolling to the side. The basement fell still and silent. It was enough to shake Dean from his horrified trance, his fumbling hands reaching again for the straps that held Sam down.

"Sam? Can you hear me?"

Sam's nose was pouring blood, staining his lips and teeth, running in rivulets down his chin and neck. Dean took his little brother's face in his hands, tapping his cheek, "Sammy, wake up. Come on, don't make us carry you outta here."

Sam's eyelashes fluttered, slits of hazel appearing with a soft moan. "D'n?"

Dean could have cried. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me, Sammy. I'm here. Gonna get you outta here."

Dean's hands were busily undoing the remaining straps, trying to be gentle with Sam's ravaged wrists and ankles but really, _really_ just wanting to get as far away from this place as possible.

"Can you stand?" he asked, as soon as the last strap was clear, but Sam's eyes had drifted and Dean was fairly certain that Sam was somewhere else.

"Damn," he swore softly, and no sooner had he spoken than Bobby was moving in the help.

Together they managed to pull Sam into a sitting position, his head lolling against Dean's chest, and each looped an arm over their shoulders.

"Gawd," Bobby drawled, looking wide-eyed at the youngest Winchester, "What were they doing to him?"

"_Experimenting_, Jacob called it," Dean ground out between clenched teeth as they maneuvered their way up the stairs. "_Torture_ would be more appropriate."

"Gawd," Bobby said again, but had the sense to keep the rest of his questions to himself for the time being.

The walk to the Impala was more of an awkward stumble, Sam's dead weight hanging between them, but finally they got the injured Winchester settled in the back seat, a threadbare blanket from the boot covering his bare limbs, and his head resting in Dean's lap.

"…she's bleeding…"

Dean ducked his head down, trying to hear the soft mumble over the Impala's loud throaty rumbling.

"What, Sammy?"

Sam flinched, eyes still closed. "…it's got claws…"

"Oh." Dean sat back, ran a hand through Sam's dirty hair. "It's okay, Sammy," he comforted impotently, knowing that his brother couldn't hear him.

"What's he saying?" Bobby tossed a glance back from the driver's seat.

Dean cleared his throat to stop his voice from cracking, "They were dosing him with something. I don't know what it was. I think… I think they figured out how to bring on visions."

Bobby was silent. Sam murmured something indistinguishable, then quieted. Dean sat noiseless, motionless but for the movement of his hand through his little brother's hair, and they drove away from Jacob's mansion.

XXX

Sam was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming because the floor of his cage was nowhere near as comfortable as his subconscious was pretending it was, and there was sunlight on his face. He could feel it warming his skin, see the soft red of light against his closed eyelids. He could hear muted traffic outside. There was no bustle of everyday life, no sunshine in his prison, just cold silence and darkness.

He was dreaming, and for the first time in… time had no meaning anymore. It may as well have been eternity… but, for the first time in forever his dreams were soft, without blood or terror, no flesh cleaved apart or organs being chewed on. No screams or pleas. Just traffic and sunlight and blankets.

It occurred to Sam that he might be dead, and he thought dthat it would make a warped kind of sense if his version of Heaven was a crappy motel room. This dream certainly smelt like a crappy motel room.

"It's been three days."

Sam felt his brow crease slightly in confusion. What had been three days? And was that voice…?

"D'n?"

Silence, then a warm hand dropped onto his forehead and the bed dipped by his hip.

"Sam?"

Definitely Dean. How was Dean in his dream? Sounding so exactly like Sam remembered his voice sounding, but creased with worry and with the slight drawl of exhaustion. Maybe he wasn't dreaming. Maybe he was delirious, hallucinating. Could you hallucinate a voice? A touch?

"Sammy, you awake?"

No. No, definitely not awake. Definitely dreaming or dying. He was glad Dean was there though, even if it was only imaginary Dean.

Imaginary Dean sighed, "Why won't he wake up?"

"He's still recovering." Oh, Imaginary Bobby was there, too. Sam almost had a whole imaginary family. "Just give him more time."

Sam faded out. When he came back it was dark and silent and he knew that Dean had been too good to be true but it still hurt. Maybe he was getting better. It was so unfair. Couldn't he just get back to dying, so his brother could come for him?

Jacob must have killed Dean. Sam remembered with stark certainly Jacob giving the order, remembered the crushing weight of devastation in his stomach. If he could just die he could escape this cage and maybe find Dean and that was about the very best he could hope for.

And then… then there was movement, right next to him. Someone shifted their weight on the mattress (_mattress?)_ and Sam so desperately wanted it to be Dean, so desperately wanted to see Dean that he began the impossible task of opening his eyes, without even thinking about how devastated he'd be when he saw only bars and chains.

He didn't see anything of the sort. When he finally managed to lift his lids enough that his eyelashes weren't spider-webbing his vision, when his eyes finally decided that they weren't looking at the world through thick Vaseline and adjusted accordingly, he found himself staring uncomprehendingly at a silent flickering TV set.

_They had Die Hard in the afterlife?_

"D'n?"

Startled movement beside him. "Sammy?"

Dean's face swam into view above him, looking ashen in the meager light, his brow drawn tightly in barely concealed fear.

"Dean," Sam said again, a statement this time instead of a question, but it still didn't make his brother's miraculous presence make sense. Didn't make the fact that they appeared to be sharing a bed in an unfamiliar motel room make sense.

A sudden loud rumbling from close by made Sam jump (which – _ow_ – sent a rush of pain shooting in all directions) and Dean's hands appeared on his shoulders. "It's okay. It's just Bobby snoring. Apparently, old men need a lot of sleep."

Grumbling was heard from the other bed but Sam couldn't figure out the words. Dean placed a hand on Sam's forehead, checking his eyes seriously.

"But not as much as you. Are you with me this time?"

Sam frowned, trying to understand. Why was Dean talking about old men and sleep? And what did he mean this time?

"Wh' are we?"

"Motel. You've been out of it almost four days."

"Motel?" Sam spun that round in his head. Motel, with Dean and Bobby, and suddenly it was clear. "You found me?"

Dean found him. No more injections or visions or chains. No more dark or silence or alone, and Dean was pulling him up and holding him tightly against his chest, saying, "Shh, Sammy, it's okay. Don't cry, it's over. I got you. Don't cry…" even though his voice was shaking like Sam wasn't the only one coming apart at the seams.

XXX 

The TV was on; playing some re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond, but Dean wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention. He was focused on his sleeping brother, all pale skin and bruised eyes, sprawled on his side on the bed, bandages circling his ravaged wrists. Below the sheet that covered him, Sam was a mess of yellowing bruises, his ankles bandaged much like his wrists. He'd lost weight, lost the spark in his eyes so when he was awake only dulled hazels observed the goings on around him.

Dean had seen only the smallest glimpse of what had happened to his brother during Sam's time in Everglade Hall. He had sat through three days of Sam shaking and delirious, at times mumbling feverishly, at others screaming like he was bring cut open, crying for Dean even as Dean gripped his hand until his knuckles turned white, 'I'm here, I'm here,' tumbling uselessly from his lips.

Withdrawal, Bobby said, from whatever Jacob had been dosing him with, and Jacob had been dosing him almost constantly it seemed, judging by the amount of bruised needle marks on both his arms, and wasn't that just the final kick in the teeth? Jacob's drug being addictive.

But then, two days ago, Sam had slept – properly slept – and woke, understood where he was, slowly crept back towards sanity.

"I'm not telling him," Dean told Bobby, who sat at the table, eyes also on Sam, sipping from a steaming mug of coffee. "I don't even understand it."

Bobby raised his eyebrows. "It seems pretty clear to me."

Dean looked up sharply, "It does? If Sam could do that, why didn't he get himself out of there earlier?'

"I thought you said it happened after Jacob threatened to kill you." Bobby took a gulp of coffee, "Didn't Sam move a cabinet once when you were in danger?"

"This was different." Dean thought back to Jacob's sizzling corpse, the body of the old man, his face caved in. "This was so much more powerful." And brutal. "Sam couldn't of…"

"They were doing experiments, remember?"

Dean clenched his teeth at the word, ready to bite back but Bobby raised his coffee cup placatingly.

"I don't mean it like that, ya idjit. I'm just saying that it's not the most unlikely thing ever to assume that whatever they did sent Sam's powers out of control. And when he heard you were in danger, they lashed out."

Dean turned back to Sam. If he hadn't seen it himself he wouldn't have believed it.

"I'm not telling him. If he knew… He's been through enough."

Bobby shrugged, "Well, you won't find any arguments from me."

XXX

When Sam asked, Dean simply said, "They're taken care of," and Sam gave him a look that suggested he knew Dean was hiding something from him and was grateful for it.

"What about Damien?"

"Who?" Dean asked.

Sam was on the bed – still, but he was sitting up now and Dean would take what he could get – blanket wrapped loosely around his shoulders, drinking a cup of tea Dean had forced into his hands. Sam hadn't said (hadn't said much of anything actually) but Dean got the impression that Jacob hadn't fed him much, or at all. Sam wasn't entirely up to eating just yet so hot drinks would have to do. Maybe Dean would try some soup if Sam kept the tea down.

"He was… one of them." Sam scratched absently at the bandage around his left wrist, "But not… he used to bring me water, and… talk."

Dean chewed on his lip, "He have a scar? Across his cheek?"

Sam looked up at him. "Yeah."

Dean nodded, clearing his throat awkwardly, "After Jacob… took you away, he left me in the cage." Dean didn't miss Sam's involuntary shudder, the way his eyes went distant for a moment. "Damien let me out. Even told me where to find you. I don't know what happened to him."

Sam was quiet for a moment, staring sightlessly into his cup, then –

"He didn't call me_ it_, like the others did."

Dean recognized the tone and the danger signs in it, and moved immediately to sit in front of Sam on the bed.

"You're not an_ it_, Sam," he said firmly.

Sam's eyes skittered away, ashamed.

Dean took the mug from Sam's relenting hands, placed it on the night stand and pushed the laptop from Sam's knees. He took hold of Sam's shoulders. "Listen, Sammy, you're not an it. You're not a monster, or whatever else they called you. You're the good guy, Sam. They were the bad guys. What they did to you makes them the monsters."

"How do we know though?" Sam raised his eyes hopelessly, "Maybe they were right. Maybe I should be… studied, so that later, if…"

Dean shook him slightly – not much. Sam's headache was still lingering, Dean could see it in the crease between his eyes. "_Nothing_ is going to happen _later_. They didn't know you._ I_ know you, Sam. You're my _brother_, and if you_ ever_ say that you're a monster or that you need to be studied or anything else like that again, I'll kick your ass all the way to next week. Clear?"

Sam heaved a deep breath, looking like he wanted to argue but looking more like he desperately wanted to believe, and nodded.

"Clear."

"Good. Now drink your tea." Dean sat back and went to push the laptop back to Sam, but paused as he glanced at the screen. He frowned.

"What's this?" He clicked through the open windows, each showing a different photo, next to headlines that read, '_Third Drowning in Two Weeks_', '_Local Girl Found Dead in Home'_, '_Fourth Tramper Missing_', and on it went, at least two dozen articles.

Dean felt his frown deepen, "You're not looking for a hunt, are you? 'Cause seriously, Sam, you're in no shape-"

"I'm not," Sam denied immediately, watching the photos flick by as Dean clicked through them, "I just…"

Understanding dawned. Dean looked up at his brother, "These are… they're the people you saw?"

Sam looked downcast, "Not all of them. I can't find some and, I think… at the end, it all started to run together. I can't remember…"

Dean felt something in his chest pull tight, aching for his younger brother.

"Sammy," he said gently, "It's not your fault. There wasn't anything you could do."

"I know." Sam angrily brushed away the tears that spilled over his cheeks. He let his head fall back against the wall, "God, this is so stupid."

"Not stupid, Sammy. What happened… no one should have to go through that. Jacob was nuts, and this is all on him."

Dean got a sudden flash of Jacob's extra-crispy corpse. At least the bastard got what he deserved. Sam was quiet as Dean closed down the web browsers one by one.

"Get some rest, kiddo."

"Not a kid," Sam muttered, but managed to sound like a petulant toddler. Dean threw a half-grin at him and Sam rolled his eyes as he shuffled down on the bed, "Jerk."

"Bitch."

Dean went to stand but was stopped by Sam's hand suddenly clamping around his wrist. He raised an eyebrow.

Sam studiously looked everywhere apart from at Dean, his cheeks flushing. "Just… don't go anywhere," he muttered to the blankets.

Dean grinned. Perfect ammo for teasing later, but for now, Dean sat himself back down, gently nudging Sam over and scooping up the remote.

"Don't puke that tea all over me," he warned.

Sam, eyes closed, smiled drowsily, threw an arm over Dean's leg as if he didn't really believe Dean wouldn't go anywhere, and fell asleep.

Dean smiled too, flicking through channels and thinking inanely that, really, as long as Sam was around to do it, he wouldn't mind_ that_ much if his kid brother threw up all over him.

The End


End file.
